Anyone can be inspired to play all day, but very few are inspired to play every day

I believe that the answer to this topic is more important than any picking exercise you will encounter - if your goal is to"make it" as a guitarist.

Let's help each other!

For me the answer is probably all of the above - especially playing/recording with other people. Best is if you find someone who is better than you, but who for some obscure reason wants to play with you anyway.

Playing with other musicians gave me the most inspiration! But I also find very inspiring the desire to learn and get better at what I do. I generally like practicing using backing tracks - to always feel like a part of band and GMC has a cool stash! ))

This is an interesting topic. The words inspiration and motivation could probably be used interchangeably in this case. There are both internal and external factors that contribute to these things. Externally speaking, I get inspiration from many different places. Often I get inspired by what music I am listening to on any given week. For instance I get a lot of inspiration/motivation from listening to songs like tears in heaven by clapton, or perhaps some of Gary Moore's stuff like The Messiah will come again. This makes me want to play better, and motivates/ inspires me to work all the harder and practice all the longer. Also, I find playing with other musicians who are slightly to greatly better than me is inspiring, because it makes me want to expand the boundries of my skill level in order to be able to reach the level they have achieved in their playing.

MonkeyDAthos- absolutely agree w/ you about dream theater! However being a wild eyed Blues fanatic I got to add SRV to that!

I think inspiration can come from just about anything. The desire to create (not necessarily compose) something on your own after hearing a nice tune on the radio or listening to the birds singing or watching how green or brown everything suddenly got a certain time of the year, the wish to just relax with your instrument after a day at work...

...or your woman left you and you shot a man in Reno.

QUOTE (Todd Simpson @ May 21 2011, 12:45 AM)

Sometimes, youtube can be a great source of inspiration Here is a gal who is one of the most subscribed folks in Japan (though some tubers claim this is a dude in a kimono an skirt) and she RAWKS.

That person is doing a fantastic job, covering both Glen and Ken in one of my favorite songs from '84! In fact, it's still one of my all time favorites.